Conventionally known lightweight structural components comprise an outer skin which is reinforced on an inwardly facing side by a stiffening or stiffening members. For example, conventional aircraft fuselages are constructed in such a way that the outer skin is reinforced or stiffened with the aid of ribs and stringers including so-called “clip”. The stiffening members are secured to the inside of the outer skin by rivets, by adhesive bonding, or by welding. In order to adapt the skin thickness to localized load requirements, the skin thickness is reduced in areas where lower loads are effective to thereby reduce the weight of the skin particularly between the stiffening members. Thinning of the skin is performed by mechanical or chemical milling operations. These operations are known as “pocketing”.
European Patent Publication EP 0,649,373 B1 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,429,326 discloses a compound plate comprising at least a first and a second metal ply which are connected to each other by an adhesive layer. Such metal polymer laminates are particularly suitable for use as lightweight structural components in the aircraft construction because these laminates combine advantageous mechanical characteristics with a low structural weight. Due to the limited width of the sheet metals or metal foils to be connected with each other it is necessary to employ a splicing operation for the production of skin sections or fields for an aircraft fuselage. This reference describes the splicing operation. A local adaptation of the laminate thickness of the structural component to different load requirements in different locations is not addressed in this reference.
International Publication WO 98/53989 A1 describes a further lightweight structural component with adhesively bonded metal layers or plies. Compared to the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 5,429,326 the International Publication discloses an improvement of the known splicing concept for bonding individual laminated composite panels to a structural component. Again, no local adaptation of the laminate thickness to different load requirements in different locations within the panel area are disclosed.